Down On Ferry Farm

You remember back in your school days when it came to picking teams? Two players were chosen as captains and the rest of the rabble would picked to be on one of the two teams. Invariable, the kid with no apparent sports talent would be picked last. This ended up being either the fat kid or the geeky kid who knew the formula for pi. In some cases it would turn out that there was an odd number of players and – true to form – one of the team captains would shout “all time quarterback!” wherein everyone else would groan. On certain occasions, when there was a real grudge match and nobody wanted to play both sides, that last kid would be asked to step aside and let the others play. Let’s just say that kid was none too happy about sitting on the sidelines. It’s like that in our adult life, too. As men, we stand at the bar and wait for single young women to pick us to be on their team. We do a lot more bargaining to be on their team than we did when we were kids, but the sentiment is still th

You know, I realized something sitting here in front of my computer. I’ll tell you what the realization is and then I’ll try my best to defend my point. Here goes: I am my own child Hear me out, try and follow my thinking on this one: - I am responsible for my well-being - I have to get myself up in the morning - I am the one who has to get myself cleaned up and fed in the morning - Did I have homework? If so, did I get a chance to check it? - Who else is going to bring me to work but me? - I am the one who has to feed myself at lunch time - You see where I’m going here… Isn’t that what we are for kids? We are basically responsible for everything in their lives. We tend to their livelihoods and make sure they get what they need to be well-meaning members of society. That’s what I do for myself. I make sure I am a functioning cog in this great big wheel of life. There should be some playtime in there. There should also be some crea

Okay, I just have a quick rant and then I’ll leave you alone. So I needed to get my hair cut and I went to the place I usually go to have this service provided. It’s your typical hair-cutting establishment in a franchise place. I walk in and there are 3 guys waiting and 2 women. I’m looking at the guys thinking that they’re waiting for their wives/girlfriends to finish getting their hair cut because their hair is so short already. Anyhow, one of the hair-cutting ladies comes out and calls one of them up, I’m thinking, “if my hair was that short, I wouldn’t be here because he clearly does NOT need a haircut”. But, whatever… Another hair stylist comes and gets one of the other guys. Again, would not need my hair cut if it was this short. It becomes obvious to me that these are Navy guys. Thing I can’t understand is: Why are they spending $12 to get .00001 inch of hair cut off when they could get that done for free on base? I know what you’re thinking: “It’s because the hair stylists here

This time out the subject is Top 10 Cartoon Duo’s. I was only going to make this a Top 5 list but I had so many entries to work with, I added the last 5. Here’s the list is no particular order – wait, that’s not right… 10. Ren & Stimpy: Call this entry the ‘Odd Couple’ of the group. A cat and a dog (I think) living together and making their way despite their obvious instincts to be sworn enemies. I have to admit that this cartoon was hard to watch sometimes because of the ‘gross’ nature of both characters – pooping and boogers a big part of the vernacular. “Oh, Re-e-e-n?”, “Yes, Stimpy!” 9. Inspector Gadget & Penny: An uncle and his niece go around solving crimes against Dr. Claw. It was actually Gadget and his dog, Brain, that tried to solve the crimes and Penny that actually solved them. She would tell Brain the solution and that crazy dog would expend a great deal of energy trying to make the Inspector understand the solution. Finally, when Inspector Gadget would ‘stumble

To whom it may concern: A few years ago I made a widely released film with my then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez. Let me be clear about this: we knew when we were making it that it wasn’t that good. Did we think it was the worst movie ever made? No. We didn’t write it, we didn’t direct it… we just acted in it. We took a lot of time, money and energy to make this film. We hired people like Christopher Walken and Al Pacino to be in the damn thing. I had just come off a little film called Daredevil (where I met my current wife – more on that later) and Jennifer just came off making “Maid In Manhattan” and we just figured – what the hey. Bottom line: I’ve seen Jennifer Lopez naked. More than that, I’ve had sex with her on numerous occasions. Can YOU say that? Yeah, I didn’t think so. A few more years go by and she gets married to another guy. A while later, I get married and everyone’s happy, right? (Side note: what the hell was that performance at the Grammy’s all about. Ouch, my ears!) So

I had one of those “Forrest Gump” moments the other day. I was sitting in my car and noticed a small white feather in the corner of my windshield. If you recall from the movie, the white feather was the device used to connect the beginning of the movie with the end, to remind us that life is just like that feather – floating around and touching the lives of those who need it. There’s a randomness to life that I haven’t yet been able to explain but as my mother used to say “there are just some things in life you can’t explain”. Sometimes you just have to go around your life and deal with what happens. Sometimes you have control over your situation, sometimes you don’t. In either case, you tend to do what you think is best for the situation. There are people that I have run across in this life that have the ‘need’ to believe something. They have to have faith in something or they feel their life is missing something. I guess I’ve never been that kind of person. I never felt like could ev

He's 40 today...

A while back I was driving to work. It was the first time I was late for my new job because there was an accident on the freeway. It wasn’t just an accident, I’m pretty sure someone got taken away in an ambulance. Of the 4 lanes on the freeway, three of them were taken up with the accident. There were also a dozen or so Police cars and various emergency equipment vehicles. Coming home there were not one but two accidents. The first one was a motorcycle that appeared to have careened off a jersey wall. The other was a bumper-thumper. It amazes me to no end that people will slow down to watch things on the side of the road. If someone pulls to the shoulder to check something in their car – traffic slows down. A hot, leggy blond leans over her Jeep… oh, hell, I’ll even take a peek at that. Why are we so curious about such things? What are we hoping to see? What can we learn from seeing a fire engine hose down a burning car? The answer is this: we don’t see these things every day. It’s ver